BY TRISHA REIMERS
GEELONG — A picket line has been running since December 13 on the site a gas-fired power station is to be built just outside Geelong, in the Golden Plains shire. The picket was set up following the decision of the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal to allow construction of the plant.
The proposal for the Stonehaven power station, a project of multinational company AES, has undergone several modifications since first being discussed in April 2000. Although it was originally intended to be functioning by this summer, construction has not even started.
This is mainly due to the opposition to the plant from local residents, environmentalists and health and safety activists, many organised in the Batesford and Geelong Action Group. Geelong residents have also formed the Geelong Regions Air and Environmental Lobby.
The current proposal is for a 450 megawatt plant with four generating units. AES has only got permission to operate the plant at 5% of capacity, an agreement it is trying to overturn.
One of activists' concerns is that no Environmental Effects Statement has been produced. Such a statement should have been compulsory, but state ALP planning minister John Thwaites exempted the plant from this requirement, against ALP policy.
In September the Environmental Protection Authority announced that the power station could be built without "undue" environmental destruction. However, the plant's opponents argue that the EPA's data collection was flawed, and that it used existing guidelines, rather than more stringent guidelines shortly to be passed by state parliament.
Documented likely effects of the power plant include: sulfur dioxide (acid rain) and nitrogen oxide emissions; the use of massive amounts of water, and the local extinction of many flora and fauna species.
The Electrical Trades Union has placed "green" bans on the site. The Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union and the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union have agreed to honour the community picket line.
Many residents are determined to ensure that the power station is never built. Several picketers say they will leave Geelong if it is.
Public meetings will be held in Batesford and Geelong over the next two weeks to discuss the next steps in the campaign. A website <http://www.picketpower.com> has also been established, and picket-line activists have a regular Sunday morning program on 3CR radio.
From Green Left Weekly, January 23, 2002.
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